Savor delicious dishes with A Taste of Old Town:

Walking tours are a great way to get your bearings in a new town and learn a bit about the area. Add stops at several favorite eateries with samples of their best menu offerings, and you might just have the perfect way to spend an afternoon on vacation.

With more than 600 restaurants in Scottsdale featuring flavors from across the country and around the world in casual cafes with plenty of patio space and fine dining in chic spaces, you’ll want to try it all; or at least as much as you can. A Taste of Old Town Scottsdale’s three-hour lunch tour lets you sample several of Scottsdale’s best while soaking in the culture and history of the town.

Your engaging and gregarious guide will set the pace with introductions, a brief overview of the tour and a bit of Scottsdale’s history. Landmarks pointed out and stories told throughout the tour are entertaining and informative without distracting from the main feature: the food. Each restaurant has its own anecdote that you may not get from visiting on your own; whether it’s the chef’s food philosophy, a secret ingredient or a bit of the building’s history.

The first bite of the tour lands you at Mission, a local favorite for modern Latin cuisine. Flavors explode on your taste buds at family-owned Outrageous Olive Oils and Vinegars where you’ll learn nearly as much as you’ll taste about the magic of oils and vinegars. The next stop is Grimaldi’s Pizzeria of New York fame, where the coal-fired brick oven pizza will keep on coming as you hear how the Arizona State University’s scientists created a custom water system to pump the famous New York water for the dough into Grimaldi’s establishments as they expanded westward.

A stroll through the famed arts district leads the group to 5th and Wine, a favorite spot for locals where you’ll sip a refreshing glass of vino and sample a few appetizers. Cowboy Ciao, one of Scottsdale’s most unique and famed restaurants, is well-known for its Stetson Salad, and you’ll get to sample it firsthand and try to decipher the unusually paired ingredients that combine to make delicious flavors.

The tour ends on a sweet note with dessert at Kelly’s at SouthBridge, a swanky and welcoming bar and restaurant with two patios and tons of indoor space for dining and socializing.

At the end of the tour, your belly will be pleasantly full and you’ll feel like you know this tasty town a bit better than you did before. You may even find yourself with some new friends and dining companions with whom to discover even more flavors of Scottsdale.

Good to know:

Tours are available for lunch six days a week and dinner two nights a week. This article shares highlights from Tour 2.

Restaurants visited on each tour may vary, and dishes at each stop may vary depending on the season and at the discretion of the eatery.

With advance notice, food allergies can be accommodated for and vegetarian options can be provided.

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